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If you're like most of the movie-consuming public, by now you've lost track of the number of incredibly bad movies Nicholas Cage has made in the last 10 years. By my estimate, the number's got to be hovering around 20 by now. But love him or hate, N.C. is here to stay. Now let's take a look back at one of his earliest (awful) efforts.
Paramount Pictures
He Needs a New LookAlthough the premise of Face/Off seems ridiculous by today's standards, back in 1997 it was practically cutting edge. Remember, the studios still took risks in the '90s, meaning a film about an FBI agent (John Travolta) who undergoes an experimental face transplant in an effort to foil the plot of a ruthless terrorist (Nicolas Cage), could be green-lit without any problem. The result was a high-octane action-thriller that drew nearly universal praise from audiences, as well as esteemed critics like Roger Ebert. But 1997 was a long time ago, and in today's superhero-saturated film market, Face/Off's action sequences seem a bit bland and dated. I mean c'mon, a chase scene on a boat? Been done! It was called Speed 2.
Just Soak Me AlreadyThink John Travolta is already creepy looking? He looks even creepier while submerged in a tank of water...albeit bodiless.
Travolta Was Back...BrieflyJohn Travolta played FBI Agent Sean Archer in the film, which went on to earn nearly $250 million at the global office. His career had stalled in the '80s, but thanks to his starring turn in films like Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty, Travolta had proven himself yet again to be a bankable, A-list star. And his role in Face/Off only cemented that fact. Then came Battlefield Earth in 2000 and well...you know the rest.
Cage Was Just Getting StartedIt seems like eons ago (or the year 1995, to be exact) but once upon a time Nicolas Cage actually was a great actor. He played complicated characters in serious movies like Leaving Las Vegas, Bringing out the Dead, and Adaptation. But in the mid-'90s something within Cage changed, and he started whoring out his God-given talents for the roles that paid the most. As a result, his once ardent base of fans were left scratching their heads after films like Ghost Rider, Knowing, and about a billion National Treasure movies, were released. Is the movie about a face transplant gone awry, bad? Not necessarily. In fact, compared to most of the schlock being crapped out by Hollywood in the year 2013, it actually qualifies as quite average. But Cage's decision to churn out one bad movie after the next, while consistently diminishing his once revered legacy, is just plain wasteful. And sadly, it all started with Face/Off.
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As much as some people may be thanking their stars that the 1990s are over and Baja jackets are no longer cool, the fact remains that the decade had some of the best music ever. The '90s were coming off of the ridiculous excess of the '80s and went through a rollercoaster ride of numerous music genres.
Here’s a look at 7 artists that released their debut albums in the '90s and still have us pining for them.
Pearl Jam: Ten (1991) Ahhh, Ten – the album that launched a thousand crappy rock bands and horrendous singers who think their vocals are deep and profound (see: Scott Stapp, Chad Kroeger, Aaron Lewis, etc.). There could’ve been a legit Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam feud with Kurt Cobain telling Flipside magazine that Pearl Jam was nothing but “false alternative macho metal” when Ten came out, but unfortunately, Eddie Vedder is way too mature, reportedly reaching out to Cobain and ultimately getting on friendly terms before Cobain’s death. Ten took grunge into a whole new level and proved the diversity and lasting power of Pearl Jam. Dealing with everything from abortion to depression and murder to bullying, Ten was the perfect social commentary: effective without being preachy. The album also made Pearl Jam stand out in the grunge movement, as their sound was rooted more in classic rock than punk and low-fi.
Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted (1992) If you love indie rock (whatever that means to you), then props must be given to Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted. The band is constantly referred to as the most influential band of the '90s because of their ultimate reach over how the indie rock scene turned out. With their stream-of-thought lyrics, purposely shoddy production, and beautiful melodies, Pavement influenced just about every indie rocker that came out after them – what the Pixies and Sonic Youth did for grunge, Pavement did for a whole new generation of indie.
Dr. Dre: The Chronic (1992) One of the most influential albums in West Coast gangsta rap, Dr. Dre’s The Chronic is such a legendary album that it took Dre 7 years to make a worthy follow up. Dre’s debut solidified G-funk rap and also launched the career of Snoop Dogg. The Chronic also led to the legendary East vs. West rap beef that dominated rap scene in the '90s. The legendary “F**k Wit Dre Day (And Everybody’s Celebratin’)” took serious shots at Eazy-E and others, even using impersonators in his video, and all of a sudden rap beef was something more than “Yo mama’s so fat” jokes. The album also cemented Dre as a superstar producer, as the album boasted some of the slickest production that the genre had ever heard.
Liz Phair: Exile In Guyville (1993) According to Liz Phair, her crazy influential debut Exile in Guyville was a track-by-track response to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St.. Sure Liz, whatever – the point is, Exile in Guyville managed to change both the alt rock scene and also the way people perceived female singer-songwriters. Though her lyrics may seem tame now, at the time it was surprising to hear a young woman sing about sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, and crappy relationships. Her honesty was refreshing and gave women a voice that differed from the airhead pop songs that were previously associated with women. Though she never got the full recognition that she deserved, Phair helped pave the way for the angry/over-it rock chick to enter the mainstream.
Green Day: Dookie (1994) Okay, okay, so technically Dookie isn’t Green Day’s debut-debut album, but it is the band’s major label debut. Dookie was the record that took the band from playing at rowdy gigs to Bay Area kids at 924 Gilman to becoming known and emulated all over the world. After years of grunge, flannel, and low serotonin dominating the music world, all which was further exacerbated by Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April, 1994’s Dookie was a breath of fresh air, a testament to “F**k it all, let’s just have a blast.” Green Day is responsible for igniting the generally horrendous pop-punk movement of the '90s, but no one has been able to emulate the pop-punk perfection on Dookie, which succeeded in having all the elements of punk rock akin to bands like the Ramones: apathy, boredom, aggression, independence, and fun.
Oasis: Definitely Maybe (1994) Oasis’ debut album had a similar effect in England that Dookie had in America, albeit in a more drunken fashion. After the Stone Roses’ seminal self-titled debut in 1989, the Britpop movement had officially begun, and Oasis’ first album helped define it. Definitely Maybe paved the way for a completely new type of rock that kicked aside the emo-filled despondencies of shoegaze, filling it instead with tales of drunkenness, debauchery, and celebration. The Gallaghers weren’t moaning about not feeling good enough or getting dumped by their girlfriends – they were bragging about how blessed you were to be in their presence and how they don’t care about anything because they just want to get sloshed. The album was filled with songs that made you feel rowdy and confident, not sullen and moody, and marked a turning point in the direction the Britpop genre took in the mid-'90s.
Britney Spears: …Baby One More Time (1999) Though it may seem blasphemous to place Britney Spears on a list among the likes of Pavement and Oasis, the influence that her debut album had on the pop world is utterly undeniable. …Baby One More Time not only launched the career of a bona fide pop culture icon, but it also kickstarted the teen pop movement for the millennial generation. It’s hard to find any pop singer who came out in the 2000s that hasn’t been influenced by Spears, and regardless of whether that’s for better or for worse, ultimately Spears changed the pop landscape for good.
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On Oct. 9 Arrow, and hooded justice, returns to the CW. Stephen Amell is back as Oliver Queen, Starling City's billionaire playboy turned nocturnal quiver-wielding vigilante, the Green Arrow. And judging by this new teaser, Oliver's going to be in for a quite a Season 2. There are shots of sharp weapons and sharper abs, all leading to that immortal slogan "When the hood goes up..." Unfortunately, there's no sign of The Flash, who's been confirmed to be a part of the new episodes, but there's more than enough to get you excited. Check it out.
Jack Rowand /The CW
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Columbia Pictures
The girl-on-girl kiss has become a primetime mainstay, since writers realised most people really like to see one All-American starlet frenching on another. So, which PG girl-on-girl kisses are going to be burnt onto our retinas for the rest of time?
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair, Cruel Intentions
The thrill of girls next door gone wild is potent. (PS. if you live next door to a vampire slayer and a Party of Five star then we’re coming to your next bridge tournament).
Winona Ryder and Jennifer Aniston, Friends
This vanilla screen kiss, aired at a time when girl-girl snogging was much less common, is a sneaky callback to an unseen and presumably less PG college makeout session that Ryder's character memorably describes. The image of their ‘coconuts knocking together’ ensures that just because this quick peck is the one we see, it’s not the one on everybody’s dirty little mind. Good job, shifty screenwriters!
Allison Williams and Jemima Kirke, Girls
If you live in Brooklyn and you haven’t seen your ‘free spirit’ hipster buddies kissing by now, just zoom in on Lena Dunham’s brat pack for the girl-on-girl-on-Girls experience.
Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor, Xena: Warrior Princess
The ultimate Amazonian found perennial solace in the leather jerkin of her BFF. (And to their credit, the show's producers did eventually acknowledge that Xena and Gabrielle were offscreen lovers...the characters,that is, not the actresses.)
Mischa Barton and Olivia Wilde, The O.C.
Listen to the crashing of the waves. Hear the soft murmur of girls, bonding. Pretend you don’t know the Sapphic action is as inevitable as the tide....
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Warner Bros
The announcement that Ben Affleck would play Batman in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie sent shockwaves around the Internet. Twitter, Facebook, and comic book forums lit up as millions of geeks expressed their opinion that Affleck was seriously miscast. While we haven’t yet seen Affleck don the armor of the Dark Knight, we have seen past failures when superstar and superhero don’t quite merge harmoniously.
George Clooney as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Batman &amp; Robin (1997)One could fill an entire list of miscasts from this movie alone, but the worst decision was to cast George Clooney as Batman. The debonair Clooney certainly is a talented actor, but none of that talent surfaced during this two-hour campfest.
Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Green Lantern (2009)There’s nothing inherently wrong with infusing lightheartedness into a film adaptation of a comic book, but there has to be some sort of plausibility to it. Casting Ryan Reynolds as a man without fear is simply laughable. The man lacks a serious bone in his body, and we’re to believe he can stand up to the embodiment of evil?
Brandon Routh as Superman/Clark Kent, Superman Returns (2006)He may have looked and sounded like Christopher Reeve, but he was certainly no Superman. More of a Superboy, Brandon Routh just didn’t have the gravitas, charisma or machismo to play the Man of Steel.
Warner Bros/Everett Collection
Halle Berry as Catwoman, Catwoman (2004)Halle Berry’s Catwoman may not be the Selina Kyle most people associate with the famed comic cat burglar, but even the re-imagined sexy alternative didn’t suit the Academy Award winning actress. Her acting was simply so abysmal that some critics thought she should return her Oscar for Monster's Ball as a penalty for pitiful performance.
Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, Spider-Man TrilogySam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 were two of the best superhero movies of all time (the less we talk about Spider-Man 3, the better), but Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man really didn’t conform to his comic book counterpart. Lean, wiry and with a smart-ass personality, Spider-Man was not the lovesick puppy dog that Tobey Maguire portrayed, who resembled more like Clark Kent than Peter Parker.
Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, The Incredible Hulk (2009)Another capable actor who just didn’t seem like a right fit for the role, Edward Norton was grossly miscast as Bruce Banner. In real life, Norton’s a very intelligent man, but he could never exude the genius-level intellect of Bruce Banner. But most importantly, Norton just doesn’t possess the inner rage that would manifest itself into an unstoppable, hulking green force.
Shaquille O’Neal as Steel/John Henry Irons, Steel (1997)Where to begin? For starters, Shaquille O’Neal is a basketball player with no acting skills, despite having appeared in several films by now. Second, while Shaq may possess more inches than required to reach the imposing height of John Henry Irons, he doesn’t have the chiseled physique nor the hardened look to strike fear into criminals.
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Carnival Films
Break out the tea towels! Filming on Series 4 of Downton Abbey has wrapped, and though those of us Stateside won't be able to catch up with the Crawleys until January, photos from the production have been released to whet our appetites for the many heated arguments about the propriety of white-tie attire versus black-tie attire to come. Specifically, we're getting our first glimpse of the three new men in the life of Michelle Dockery's Lady Mary, following the death of her husband Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) at the end of Series 3. “We do see quite a bit of the Mary she was before she met Matthew, that icy iron-maiden quality," producer Gareth Neame tells TV Guide. "It's going to take an awful lot to get her back to life." Let’s get to know the three gents in her orbit better.
Jack Ross (Gary Carr)
The dashing young jazz singer from Chicago, pictured above, meets Lady Mary in the third episode, after Branson, Rose, and Aunt Rosamund force her finally to leave Downton after her extended period of mourning. They take her to a swinging club in London called the Lotus, where Ross helps her come out of her shell. "The spine of the new season is how Mary moves from total bereavement into turning to life again," Neame says. "Ross is very positive, ambitious and charming. And we get to see him perform."
Lord Gillingham (Tom Cullen)
Carnival Films
Around the same time, Lady Mary reacquaints herself with old family friend Lord Gillingham at one of Downton’s lavish parties. He helps her out with the tangled mess of inheritance taxes surrounding Matthew’s assets. "Mary is not looking for anyone to replace Matthew, but she is, of course, a beautiful, eligible young widow, so inevitably there is going to be quite a lot of male interest," Neame says. "Gillingham is a very useful friend to Mary at a time when she's not able to make decisions."
Charles Blake (Julian Ovenden)
Remember Evelyn Napier? He was the Crawley family friend who introduced them to Turkish ambassador Kemal Pamuk — who died in Lady Mary’s bed — way back in Season 1. Well, he’s coming back. And hopefully the friend he’s bringing with him this time has a healthier ticker. Evelyn’s pal is named Charles Blake, and he’s full of ideas about how to run Downton more efficiently…just like Matthew was before his untimely end. But unlike Matthew Mary despises him. However, if you think about it, she wasn’t really keen on her eventual husband at the start of Season 1, either. "There's a bit of a difference," Neame says. "Mary objected to the law making Matthew the heir to Downton. Blake is someone she just doesn't like. He's modern-thinking but does not share the family's sentimentality about the past."
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David Gordon Green, the versatile director behind dramas like Snow Angels and George Washington, as well as screwball comedies like Pineapple Express has released his latest dramedy: a soft, sweet film called Prince Avalanche, which stars Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch as two highway workers bonding, fighting, and delving into their own psychological problems on a sleepy, fire-ravaged woodland community in Texas. Green met with Hollywood.com's Abbey Stone to talk his new film, which was born from a conversation with Explosions in the Sky at a Super Bowl party...
How did you go about adapting this movie that you liked that was already made?
The beauty of adaptations — I’ve done a lot of book adaptations, this is my first remake — the beauty is that you can just plagiarize all the stuff that you like. And you can reinvent the stuff that you want to expand or transform in some way. So, I spent the first day just transcribing the subtitles of the movie. Which sounds dumb, but there is actually amazing comedy when you just literally say what the subtitles say. In the Icelandic version, they’ve taken the concept and put the American words on it, but not necessarily how an American would speak. So there would be these weird things that I thought were funny.
When Emile’s character is talking about getting a flat tire, he says, “I ran over a very sharp object.” Which is not how you would tell somebody what it was. But to me, it’s funny to say there’s a sharp object. That’s kind of a lost in translation example of some of the comedy that was taken out of the transcription. And then I spent the next few days really personalizing it and identifying with the characters and making them people that I could relate to. Making sure they weren’t obvious cliché odd couple archetypes, and had some likable and unlikable qualities. Strange things that make me laugh, other things that brought me to an emotional place. In a way that you watch a movie and you identify with a character or you don’t, I got to not only identify with them, but I got to apply my identification with them and then transform them into me. So it was a fun process. So it took about three days.
Oh, wow!
Yeah. The start to finish of the whole process was very quick. I got the idea when I saw the film in February, and we were sound mixing the remake in July.
That is very quick!
Really rare. Usually you haven’t even gotten the meeting with the studio head by that point.
All the pieces kind of fell together, I guess.
Yeah, it was like a 16-day shoot. Very short editing period. Really efficient. No money wasted. When you don’t have money you can’t throw it around. That’s the best part.
You already touched on something a little bit that I was going to ask about. For every moment that’s funny or has kind of an absurdist, comedic element, you still really feel for the characters. I think that really comes through in the scene where Emile’s character is giving that really long speech about his weekend. With everything he’s saying, you want to laugh, but you also feel so bad for him!
[Laughs] The poor dude couldn’t get laid.
I know! It’s traumatic.
… by his best friend’s girlfriend.
So I guess I’m just wondering, was that something you were consciously trying to do? Or did it come naturally when you were creating these characters?
That’s just the kind of stuff I think is funny. I have a weird sense of humor that is not necessarily “jokes,” and not necessarily typical physical comedy, but it is the clash of where the comedic world meets the dramatic world. I find that very funny. Like, farting in church, as a kid, was the funniest thing that could ever happen because it’s forbidden and it’s rude and it’s loud and it stinks. So that, for me, makes me laugh because I’m not supposed to. So I always like those moments in movies where I’m challenged by the filmmakers or the performance. Something that makes me uncomfortable in that I’m responding one way, and I know it, but I feel like I should hide that feeling. So we try to capitalize on that in the movie. But it’s not really a comedy. It’s a weird movie. I think because we take dramatic, honest sincerity in some of the more ridiculous sequences, it has a melancholy tone that helps escort us into an emotion, by the end, of if that feels pretty genuine. At least that’s the hope, to engineer something that doesn’t feel manipulative, but takes you on a kind of a goofy journey that makes you feel like you’ve kind of experienced something slightly profound in the middle of this abstract trip.
I think you achieved that.
I hope so.
Speaking of that, your early work was very dramatic, and then you did much more broad comedy starting with Pineapple Express. And now you’re, it seems, getting back a bit to where you started. Is that a conscious decision you made?
I just like doing different kinds of stuff. I remember when I was doing Snow Angels, which is very dark, dramatic, depressing for most… although I find it life affirming in other respects. But sitting in the editing room and living with that story for so long was really hard on my heart. It was a difficult subject matter to be dealing with for such a long time. I remember thinking — actually, having the conversation with my agent: I said, “I just want to go do something really goofy and live in a nice climate.” I was up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, making that film. “I want to go live in L.A. and make something really funny. That’ll be my goal. Make a big, commercial studio comedy.” He was like, “Yeah right.” But we met the right people, made the right friends, and less than a year later, I was doing just that.
I have a great sense of ambition and drive to accomplish a lot in my life. I’m going to go out with quite a legacy, if I have it my way. And then maybe tomorrow I’ll be really impressed with what I’ve done in the last 15 years. So I just work all the time, and I really want to build a body of work that is challenging. Not necessarily just for the audience, but for me. I love to wake up with a curiosity and an uncertainty. There’s a lot of filmmakers who I think put an expectation on themselves to be brilliant. I put an expectation on myself to be vulnerable.
Oh!
And to face that vulnerability with this eager heart. So I learn a lot every day. Nobody comes to me to teach them things. They come to me to tell me things. And I like that. I’m very comfortable in that dynamic. I just finished a very dark movie, which I needed to do because it was a book that I was very close to. I was close to the author when he was alive. So I wanted to make this adaptation of this Larry Brown novel called Joe. It’s kind of a salute to Larry. And it was the right time in my life.
More importantly, though, it was the time when I found an actor who could play this kid. I met the kid, we had the movie. We were ready to go. I was just waiting — I had the book for years. I had the adaptation for a few years, even. And then I met the kid, and said, “Okay, it’s time to go. He’s 15. It works. It’s great.” So, a lot of it’s timing. Or someone will ring my doorbell and say, “Hey, here’s a script ready to go. You want to jump on it?” I’ll say, “Oh yeah? Let’s give it a shot.” Or, “Here’s a commercial.” I’m shooting a commercial next week. They called me up: “Commercial. Three days. New York City. You available?” I said, “Yeah, I’ll just wrap up my press tour, and we’ll do it. It’ll be fun. We’ll have a great time.” I really do have a whimsical life. It’s not burdened by expectations, or I don’t read a lot of press that gives me strange feelings. I have a lot of friends who say, “I can’t do that because nobody will allow me to do that because I’m this, x-y-z type filmmaker.” I don’t know. That’d be weird.
Yeah. Who says?
I’m a character actor. I’ll just jump into a new role and put on a funny hat, or take one off and laugh my tears away.
You reminded me of this when you said you were waiting to make your next film until you found the right kid. How much did these characters change when Paul and Emile got on board?
A lot! The inhabited the humanity of these roles that could have otherwise been cliché, or could have been derivative of the original. Or not as intriguing as the original. So we had that bar set. It was a good movie! So, if you’re not going to make it great, why remake it? I got really excited. I showed Paul the original movie before [we shot] the adaptation, and said, “What do you think?” And he actually had ideas before he even read it that I could integrate into the presentation of the script for him. So that was nice.
I had Paul involved in it, and then Emile called me randomly. I had just begun to think about who would play the other part. And then Emile called me with a question about some screenplay he was writing. One of the questions he asked — a couple of the questions were really smart, and I gave him my thoughts. And then he asked me some really dumb question, and I can’t remember what it was. I was like, “That’s funny that you would even ask me that. That’s weird.” I hung up the phone after that conversation, called him back in about 10 minutes, and said, “Will you read this script?” He’s such an energetic and enthusiastic young guy, so I could play on these strange comedic bits that I know Emile is so capable of. He’s like that character. One moment he’s really profound, and the next minute he’s bafflingly naïve. I just love the honesty of a character like that. It’s just so refreshing — somebody who is not afraid to ask questions that you may get laughed at for asking.
One of the scenes I wanted to ask you about specifically was the scene where Paul discovers the old woman in her burnt down house. I heard that she was someone you just found, and that was her house?
Yeah. We were in production. That wasn’t in the script. She was just going through, looking for her pilot’s license.
That’s crazy! That scene, to me, is so pivotal to the movie.
I can’t imagine if it wasn’t in it. It’d be such a different movie.
Yeah. So then, how did you shift gears when you discovered?
It was a real organic effect on everything. It just kind of echoed dramatically. The scene that follows that scene — where Paul is walking around, pantomiming talking to his wife — that was a funny scene in the script. But it was not a funny scene in the movie. It’s kind of quirky, but there’s that ending shot of him sitting in that little rocking chair, rocking back and forth, with a sad look on his face. To me, it just illustrates that we wanted to be appropriate. We wanted to pay respect to Joyce. After we met her, we were all in love with her. We had to be very sincere about the movie we were making, because not only did we have a cinematic backdrop that gave us great production value, and it was a cool movie, but we were embracing people whose lives had been totally f**ked up by this fire. It was devastating to see her loss, and what she was going through. The city was trying to clean off the foundation of her house before she found her log book. It was just a beautiful and profound moment that doesn’t exist without Joyce. If it wasn’t for her, we might just be looking at that movie like…
As a thing that we did.
Yeah. We just did this thing…
And then, she becomes such an interesting character as well. I feel like you’re not really sure if she’s real or a ghost — it kind of adds a dreamlike quality.
That’s just Joyce. It’s all Joyce. Joyce is a mystical creature. It’s very beautiful to have her say things like, “I’m digging through my own ashes.” There are all these things that you could write, but it wouldn’t be as cool as when Joyce says things. That are from her heart and she really believes. She was very traumatized by this, as one would be. It affected everything. It affected all of us.
I wanted to ask how you got Explosions in the Sky on board.
They got me on board! It was their idea to make the movie in the first place. Yeah. We were at a Super Bowl party, and they’re like, “We need to make a movie together. Go write something.” And then the drummer, Chris, said, “Why don’t you go make a movie in Bastrop, at the state park? It’s beautiful now that it’s starting to bloom again after the fire.” So, the next day, I went, and I called them up, and said, “Okay! I’m going to try to find a movie to make here. You guys better get ready.” And it was great. I got to collaborate with one of my lifelong best friends, David Wingo. They evolved their sound a little bit. For those who are familiar with their sound, I think it’s a little bit… this shows a different dramatic capability that they have. It integrated clarinets, and vocals, and beat boxing, and some unique instrumentation. Also, it’s really mellow for long periods of time, and has a strange haunting quality to it. It really is a great signature to the movie, the music. More so than anything I’ve ever done before. It’s a real present soundtrack. So, that’s all them. I think they’re going to do my next movie.
That’s exciting! I thought the music added so much. Really, so much about the movie is a sense of place. The music adds so much to that, and to the mood, to the nature scenes…
It’s interesting, because we’re all neighbors. We all live in the same neighborhood in Austin. So they would come and hang out on set, or write music and bring it to set. In the editing room, they would have tip stuff ready for us. And we’d start working on putting the picture to their music. And they’d take images and play with music. So it was very civilized, unlike usually, when you’re like, “Hey, here’s this tip score that was in Transformers. Will you rip it off and make it kind of your own — try to be legally safe?” It can be a very derivative process, but those guys are really unique and creative, and they love movies as much as I do. It’s kind of cool to be able to speak a common language with a group of people. It was a very enjoyable movie from top to bottom.
Good. We like to hear that. I was reading about the scene where Paul and Emile are singing, and how they were improvising. I’d love to hear your take on how that all went down.
There’s a guy named Tommy Sturgis, who was our boom operator. He had a little battery pack for his radio receiver. And it said “bad connection,” because there was a crappy cable. It had a little piece of tape that said “bad connection.” So that day, I started calling the boom guy “Bad Connection,” as a joke nickname. And then we were going to sing a song — in the script, it was like, they sing a song, they get drunk. And they said, “What are we going to sing a song about?” And I said, “I don’t know. We don’t have the money to license anything. We’ll have to make one up.” I said, “It’s called ‘Bad Connection.’ Go.” So then, they just free-styled that song. And then we went back after the movie was done, and in the beginning of the movie — where Emile puts a tape in — we did that in post-production. I had a couple of musicians do a version of “Bad Connection” as if...
Oh, as if it’s a real song!
As though it’s a real song. So they sing the s**tty song, get the lyrics all wrong. It’s pretty funny.
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The Flash is coming to The CW's Arrow this year. And he might run faster than the speed of light into his own series, too. The news was confirmed on Tuesday by the President of The CW, Mark Pedowitz, during the 2013 Summer TCA Press Tour.
“We plan to introduce a recurring character and the origin story of Dr. Barry Allen, who you know as the Flash," he said. "We do want to expand upon the DC Universe. We think that there are rich characters we can use, and we felt like this was a very organic way to get there.”
It was announced in February that The CW's most popular freshman series would return for a second season in October. The series stars Stephen Amellas Oliver Queen, a secret hooded crime fighter based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow. Flash, the newest addition to the series, will first appear this fall and again in 2014, but not necessarily at the hands of a big star. “I’m from the old school and I think TV creates stars. If we get a name, great. If we don’t get a name, they’ll become a name,” he said.
Is the speedy superhero's spin-off series a sure thing? "If you don’t feel the chemistry, it doesn’t happen,” Pedowitz said. Cross your fingers for chemistry, Flash fans!
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If you were missing the sight a long-haired Emile Hirsch frolicking in the wilderness, then get excited. The Into the Wild actor is making a return to Mother Nature in the summer's upcoming release, Prince Avalanche. And this time, he's joined by none other than Paul Rudd.
Hirsch and Rudd play Lance and Alvin, two men who take who take odd jobs painting traffic lines on a country highway in the summer of 1988. The stern and contemplative Alvin enjoys the hard work and solitude, but Lance is much more free spirited, leading to quite a few spats between the odd couple.
The new trailer for Prince Avalanche is full of hilarious and heartfelt moments, all set against the desolate background of a fire-ravaged Texas countryside. It's particularly entertaining to see the boys in denim overalls, with Rudd rocking a full mustache (though not quite as creepy as his Brian Fantana look in Anchorman). The music by Explosions in the Sky adds to the atsmophere of adventure and introspection.
Prince Avalanche was filmed secretly, as director David Gordon Green wanted to make a quiet return to his indie movie roots. The character-driven piece is a bit of a departure for Rudd, who has made a name for himself playing the effortlessly cool, funny guy in hit comedies like Knocked Up and I Love You, Man.
Prince Avalanche, which is a remake of the Icelandic film Either Way, premiered at Sundance to rave reviews. The movie hits theaters on August 9th.
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